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36

Anglican/Episcopal
T. Patrick Milas, New Brunswick Theological Seminary, Convener

MEMBERS PRESENT 

• Mitzi Budde, Virginia Theological Seminary
• Vincent Williams, Virginia Theological Seminary
• Susanah Hanson, Trinity School for Ministry
• T. Patrick Milas, New Brunswick Theological Seminary
• Alison Poage, Seminary of the Southwest
• Duane Carter, Seminary of the Southwest
• Marlon Paterson, Seminary of the Southwest
• Jude Morrissey, Yale Divinity School
• Will Coberly, Liberty University

I. CALL TO ORDER

Members of the Anglican and Episcopal Denominational Group met 
via Zoom on June 27 at 12 p.m. Eastern. 

II. GROUP LEADERSHIP

Patrick Milas called for nominations for the role of convener. Milas 
was encouraged to continue serving as convener. He affirmed that 
he will continue. 

III. 2024 WORSKHOP/CONFERENCE REPORT

Patrick Milas reported that the Anglican and Episcopal Denominational 
Group essentially kicked off the conference Thursday morning. We 
offered worship in the Anglican tradition, and we were joined by 
folks from several different faith backgrounds, but from our own 
Episcopal and Anglican group, Jude Morrissey helped to lead the 
service. It was well attended. It was the best attended of the morn-
ing worship services at the conference.



Denominational Group Reports  37

The Anglican and Episcopal Denomination Group was also rep-
resented in the panel, “Beyond Mere Denominationalism.” Alison 
Poage, Seminary of the Southwest, represented our group. The 
Anabaptist and Mennonite Denominational group was repre-
sented by Karl Stutzman. David Kreigh represented the Roman 
Catholic Denominational Group, and Robin McCall represented the 
Presbyterian and Reformed Denominational Group. To prepare for 
the panel presentation, Milas took a deep dive into the conference 
proceedings, going back to 1948, and looked at what was happen-
ing, what to make of these denominational groups, when did they 
get started, etc. What he discovered was that over the decades 
there was a really vibrant track record of contributing to devotions, 
sometimes called invocations or morning worship or Eucharists by 
our predecessors in this group. During the panel presentation, we 
heard about all kinds of resource-sharing that has gone on, includ-
ing some that is currently afoot. 

III. ROUND ROBIN REPORTS

Susanah Hanson, Trinity School for Ministry

Trinity School for Ministry has officially changed its name to Trinity 
Anglican Seminary.  The official announcement for this name change 
can be read here: https://www.tsm.edu/news/trinity-anglican-sem-
inary/.  In brief, while the name has changed, Trinity’s mission 
remains the same: to train Christian leaders for mission.  It is one 
of three seminaries recognized by the ACNA (https://anglicanchurch.
net/seminaries/).  

The Trinity Library experienced a large roof leak over the circulat-
ing collection on July 1, 2023.  Thankfully it was caught quickly, and 
books were moved, with mitigation efforts beginning right away.  In 
total, about 3,300 books were affected.  Of that number, 450 books 
had to be discarded due to mold, warping, discoloration, or some 
combination of the three.  

The Library roof was replaced in December 2023 (it is a flat roof 
that had been installed in 2001).

Not all of the damaged books are slated for replacement, but the 
Library has slowly started replacing some of the volumes.  

https://anglicanchurch.net/seminaries/
https://anglicanchurch.net/seminaries/


38    ANNUAL Y E ARBOOK

July 1, 2024, marks Susanah’s 20th anniversary of working full-
time for the Trinity Library.  Of those years, she has been Director 
of the library for 17, since 2007.

Mitzi Budde, Virginia Theological Seminary

The new presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church elected yesterday, 
Sean Rowe, is a VTS grad, so we’re very proud of the new presiding 
bishop and wish him well in his election. He’s a good guy. Mitzi knew 
him as a student some years ago. We’re fully underway with the 
summer doctoral program. Our Vice President for Academic Affairs, 
Melody Knowles, will be on Sabbatical for the next year, and so Ross 
Kane, the Director of our DMin program, will be the acting Academic 
Dean for the coming year. Most of you know that VTS affiliated with 
General Theological Seminary in New York, a year and a half ago, 
and you probably know that in May 2023, the Board closed Keller 
Library at GTS and transferred responsibility for all library services 
to Bishop Paine Library at Virginia Seminary, and so we now are the 
library of record for both our own programs, of course, but also the 
GTS ongoing Master of Divinity program, which has become now 
an online/hybrid program. Vincent, as our User Services Librarian, 
is doing a lot of work on that. The collections have been on site, 
with the library closed, so we did a study particularly on the very 
large, rare book collection. They had 30,000 volumes in their rare 
book collection - not all of which were truly rare, but still, it’s a very 
large rare book collection. So, after about six months of study, we 
made a proposal to move about 6,500 books from Keller Library’s 
rare book collection to our collection. They remain the property of 
General Seminary - we are providing professional curation, profes-
sional services, and making them accessible to scholars at an open 
library rather than having them just locked in a closed library. The 
rest of the collections remain on-site there for now. The things that 
we transferred were the early English theology collection as a whole, 
quite a number of early English print—early printed Bibles, and the 
Canon Robert Wright Book of Common Prayer Collection, which was 
his personal collection that he had willed to the Seminary. And so 
the Seminary’s own BCP Collection remains on site there in general, 
but we have transferred the Canon Robert Wright BCP Collection, 
which is a very fine collection, and there was an article actually in 
the Living Church about that collection being transferred here and 
now available for scholarly use for the 1st time, because it was a 



Denominational Group Reports  39

private collection. We also transferred 11 archival collections, but all 
of the institutional archives of GTS remain on site for now. We also 
partnered with the Living Church to digitize the entire background 
of that Episcopal Newspaper, and the Living Church coordinated 
and paid for it but we provided the background that they needed 
because we had a much older background than they had in their 
own offices. They’re planning to make that available on their web-
site, so I haven’t looked lately to see if all of those issues are up yet, 
but they’re supposed to be searchable PDFs - so that will help. And 
then, on a personal note, I am retiring this summer after 33 years 
at Virginia Seminary, so I only have a couple more weeks, and then 
my husband and I will be moving to Hickory, North Carolina, and I’ll 
be trying a new adventure for the last third of my life. I’ve spent the 
middle third of my life here, and hopefully, I have a third more to go. 

Vincent Williams, Virginia Theological Seminary

The GTS-VTS affiliations have definitely occupied a lot of our time 
and energy. We already had been serving a hybrid Doctor of Ministry 
program here. Adding an additional, decent-sized cohort of hybrid 
students has been something we’re trying to learn how to serve 
them best out of our library. I think that hit a lot of the main points. 
Having a library director retire will definitely bring some changes. 
We’re doing a couple of technical backend updates over the summer, 
Open Athens authentication service - we have been using Easy Proxy. 
I’m hoping to find a little bit of continuity there and future-proofing 
with Open Athens. I think Mitzi hit some of the main things. It’s kind 
of a continual cycle of getting ready for the next semester, serving 
the students, then getting ready for the next semester, serving the 
students. 

Jude Morrissey, Yale Divinity School

Yale Divinity School is busy building the Living Village. Berkeley 
Divinity School is also in the midst of construction, while the Berkeley 
Center is being rebuilt, which will include new ways to use the 
physical space. Yale University Library is going through some big 
changes, including migrating from Voyager to Alma and wrestling 
with what to do with AI. Yale Divinity Library has similarly had some 
major changes, particularly with the addition of a new Director, Cliff 
Anderson. We have also had some really great progress on special 
projects, including digitizing glass lantern slides and beginning 

https://livingvillage.yale.edu
https://berkeleydivinity.yale.edu/posts/2024-03-12-berkeley-center-renewal-march-update
https://berkeleydivinity.yale.edu/posts/2024-03-12-berkeley-center-renewal-march-update
https://divinity.yale.edu/news/clifford-anderson-appointed-divinity-library-director
https://divinity.yale.edu/news/clifford-anderson-appointed-divinity-library-director
https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog?search_field=all_fields&q=Lin+Collection


40    ANNUAL Y E ARBOOK

to keep our YDS theses in the institutional repository, Eli Scholar. 
In personal news, Jude Morrissey is now officially a nominee for 
postulancy.

Alison Poage, Seminary of the Southwest

On September 13, 2023, the library formerly known as the Library 
at the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest (1957-2000) 
and the Booher Library (2000-2023) reopened after a full renovation 
as the Bishop Dena A. Harrison Library. The print collection has 
officially been named the Booher Collection. The Harrison Library 
and the Wright Learning and Information Center, the library at 
Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, share an ILS. In January 
2024 the libraries migrated from Ex Libris Voyager to Koha hosted 
by ByWater Solutions. In May 2024, Seminary of the Southwest 
announced that the Southwest Board of Trustees has unanimously 
elected and called Dr. Scott Bader-Saye to be the Ninth Dean and 
President of Seminary of the Southwest. Dr. Bader-Saye will begin 
in this role on July 1, 2024. Dr. Bader-Saye had most recently been 
the Academic Dean, so the seminary will announce a new Academic 
Dean later this year.  Also in May, the Harrison Library hosted 
the staff of the Archives of the Episcopal Church for a tour of the 
Harrison Library and some refreshments. The two organizations 
shared a building at 606 Rathervue Place for over six decades so it 
was great to be back together! The Archives is now situated about 
two miles away from the Harrison Library. 

In June, Duane Carter, Assistant Library Director, attended the 
Atla Conference in person in Long Beach. Access Services Librarian, 
Marlon Patterson, and Director, Alison Poage, attended the confer-
ence online. Alison was a panelist in the session called Beyond Mere 
Denominationalism in Atla: Exploring Ways to Enhance Professional 
Development and Resource Sharing in Theological Librarianship. In that 
session, Alison shared how librarians at Seminary of the Southwest, 
Virginia Theological Seminary, and the School of Theology—Sewanee 
have met to discuss the possibility of creating retention commit-
ments for Episcopal diocesan journals. Work on that initiative will 
resume in the fall. The Harrison Library staff, led by Director Alison 
Poage, is working on digitizing seminary material such as the semi-
nary newsletter, Ratherview, and Commencement bulletins. These 
digitized works have been helpful for assisting researchers with 

https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/divinity_theses/


Denominational Group Reports  41

questions about the seminary’s past as the institution approaches 
its 75th anniversary.

Will Coberly, Liberty University

I’m somewhat new here, so I haven’t even put in a full year yet. But 
a lot of things are happening here at Liberty; it’s a pretty fascinating 
place to be. We have a brand-new president who was inaugurated 
back in August. The Jerry Falwell Library, where we celebrated 10 
years in our new facility here, so that’s been really exciting - just 
to hit that milestone. I can talk a little bit more about the research, 
instruction side of things, which is my area. The research libraries, 
we’re kind of transitioning from teaching introductory, how to do 
basic research, and we’re going to be incorporating more research 
instruction into classes and working more as liaisons with profes-
sors. Along that same line, the research librarians here, we’re taking 
a more prominent role in research week. So I got to participate a 
few months back as a judge, in our yearly or Annual Research Week 
here with the students, and so the librarians were involved in going 
over some of the prospectus, some of the proposals, giving feedback 
before the students presented, so we’re kind of getting a little more 
integrated in with various programs and assisting students with 
the research. I actually am the special liaison between the Library 
and the Divinity School and the Divinity School has just announced 
that the school is now going to have a special seminary within it. So, 
it kind of seems like it’s all one entity. But they’re going to kind of 
rebrand, remarket, and focus more on a traditional seminary versus 
just broad Biblical studies. And with that will come some changes 
in the curriculum. And I’m already working with them on some dif-
ferent ideas of how to integrate research and how to network with 
the students. But yeah, it’s been a kind of fun experience. I do a lot 
of online consulting with the doctoral program, and the doctoral 
program students online, so we’re kind of really pushing the idea 
of meet with a librarian, or you know, every student working on a 
dissertation has to kind of connect with a librarian at some point, so 
it’s kind of an interesting emphasis that we’re working on with that.

T. Patrick Milas, New Brunswick Theological Seminary



42    ANNUAL Y E ARBOOK

We have a new Access Services and Reference Coordinator, Indira 
Douglas, who has really hit the ground running. And finally, after 
a couple of years of working to tap into Rutgers University’s work-
study program, Indira has hired and trained Library Assistants as 
part of the Rutgers program, but serving New Brunswick Seminary, 
which is, by the way, surrounded on all sides by Rutgers University, 
but we are not embedded so to speak. We have reciprocal borrow-
ing arrangements between our libraries, but we are independent. 
But, we are now a work-study site for Rutgers University, so Rutgers 
University is paying for our library assistants at the Seminary Library 
circulation desk, which is delightful. It’s great for the budget, it’s great 
for the cross-pollination between the university that surrounds us 
and the seminary—and Indira has been spearheading that. Christina 
Geuther has been collaborating with me and one of my predecessors, 
Renee House, on a book project on the history of the Sage Library. 
Next year will be our 150th anniversary, and we are in the midst of 
a capital campaign for that, with the hope that we’ll have the book 
done by next fall. It’s given me an opportunity to learn a whole 
lot about the library; when you start to work in a new library, you 
would inherit all sorts of tasks and opportunities, and sometimes 
there’s so much day-to-day that you miss some of the core, original 
strengths. Just yesterday, for example, we had an architecture pro-
fessor who was doing a study on the use of concrete in American 
architecture asking for 19th-century architectural drawings, which 
led me to some beautiful watercolors from the library’s building 
period. The Reformed Church’s Archives in Manhattan burned, and 
Gardner Sage, the namesake for the library, was passionate about 
having a safer place for our materials, so this library was built as 
a fireproof library, with its concrete foundations, columns, space 
between the stacks, such that fire, even if there was a small fire, it 
should be least likely to spread. There was no electricity originally 
and oil lamps hung at the ends of the stacks—all sorts of historical 
oddities. Having a denominational archive in the building, as well, 
brings its own joys. One, this year, was that the Collegiate Church 
of New York, America’s oldest corporation’s archives are here, and 
they include all kinds of records that you might expect. So, the RCA 
Archives was contacted by PBS about a baptismal record from the 
Van Cortland family, and we were on the edge of our seats until the 
story was featured on PBS’s “Finding Your Roots”. We were curious 
who is the descendant—who was going to be the celebrity descendant 



Denominational Group Reports  43

who was going to be featured on the show. Michael Douglas was one 
of the folks in the show, and we knew he was from New Brunswick, 
but it wasn’t him - it was Lena Dunham, who is a descendant of 
the Van Cortlands, whose records are in those archives. So that 
was a neat bit of notoriety—sometimes archival arrangement and 
processing can be behind the scenes, and often underappreciated, 
but it was nice to have that featured, and for Indira Douglas, who at 
the time was an archives assistant, to appear in the credits for that 
show. She has also digitized the Church Herald, a denominal publi-
cation. Related to that, let’s see what else is up. I enjoyed working 
with Alison Poage and others on the panel on Denominationalism. I 
continue to teach in our Doctor of Ministry program. We had a few 
more students finish their theses, which is always gratifying. So, it’s 
my personal connection to the Episcopal Church that led me to join 
this group back in 2018, and I continue to be active in the Episcopal 
Church. Our priest is planning a Sabbatical, so I’ve been working 
on a Sabbatical committee, and we’ve helped to draft a proposal for 
a Lilly Grant for that and are hopeful that that will be successful. I 
previously reported that we had record numbers of undergradu-
ates in the building, that we were open to Rutgers undergraduates, 
and we were having several hundred a week. It was exciting to 
have our historic research library so active (I would like to say that 
they were taking theological books off the shelves, but they were 
mostly there for the free WiFi and the beautiful study space). We 
had several incidents, too many incidents, of untoward behavior, 
really inappropriate behavior that led me to places like the New 
Brunswick Police Department, Rutgers Police Department, and in 
concert with the Rutgers University Library Administration, we 
have unfortunately had to close to the undergraduate students. Our 
official policy was that we were open if this undergraduate student 
could demonstrate that they had a research need at the library, but 
after the pandemic, we sort of threw the doors open after having 
no one in the library for so long— particularly hospitable, perhaps 
overly. So, we’re now closed to the undergraduates, but with the 
ship tightened a bit, things have calmed down and we’re making 
progress on our special projects. 



4 4    ANNUAL Y E ARBOOK

WORSHIP PLANNING 2025

PATRICK MILAS: So, I would be delighted if anyone would like to 
help with the planning for a morning worship experience. I must say 
too, that as our panel presentation on denominationalism heads to 
the Proceedings, some of the discoveries we made are that worship 
was not always in the morning. There were conferences where it 
was in a plenary fashion, there’s been all sorts of things happening 
in history—sometimes they are at noon, sometimes Vespers, there’s 
been Eucharists. Folks have brought in local clergy to conference 
hotels, we’ve also sponsored worship at nearby cathedrals, and so 
there’s really a wide range of opportunities. I do think that Atla is 
in the pattern of having morning worship at 7 a.m. on conference 
days in the conference hotel. 

JUDE MORRISSEY: Since I’m on the conference committee, I just want 
to say that that was something that we had discussed and considered 
very seriously shaking that up. So, morning worship is not neces-
sarily something that we’re going to be sticking to, so if you had an 
idea about afternoon or evening, that would be quite acceptable.

PATRICK MILAS: Thank you so much for sharing that, Jude, that’s 
awesome. That’s very encouraging because I can say that when I 
was a 1st time attendee at an Atla Conference, I didn’t go to the 
morning worship. It was so early, and if I could absent myself from 
something it was that, but over the years I realized, how whole-
some it is, and I’ve enjoyed attending in my tradition, and in others, 
I think it’s a really neat opportunity to see the diversity of religious 
traditions represented in Atla and to let the aesthetics and beauty 
of the Anglican tradition shine. Great, wow! Well, so then it’s really 
an open opportunity. Susanah wants to add since Atla Annual will 
be in Pennsylvania next year, right?

SUSANAH HANSON: Right, I mean, Pittsburgh is maybe a 30-minute 
drive from where I live—I’m at the Anglican Seminary, and there 
are a lot of Pittsburgh clergy that I know, so I’m sure that I can help 
with whatever—ensure that is, whatever shape we decide it takes 
I’m happy to help with that.

PATRICK MILAS: Excellent, Jude, is there a conference hotel identified?

JUDE MORRISSEY: The Omni William Penn.



Denominational Group Reports  45

SUSANAH HANSON: I need to check my map and see how far that 
is from the cathedral there in Pittsburgh, but it might not be that 
far from what I remember. So, anyway, stay tuned.

JUDE MORRISSEY: And it’s Michelle Spomer at PTS who is a great 
resource. 

SUSANAH HANSON: Yes, I will let her know about our interests. 

PATRICK MILAS: Excellent. Well, this is delightful to hear. I think I 
particularly enjoyed when we had morning worship at its normal 
time at Christ Church Cathedral in Vancouver. Just a short walk from 
the conference hotel, it was a light lift in terms of getting there, and 
it was neat to be able to experience a Canadian flavor of morning 
worship, which included a Eucharist and a homily, and folks from 
our Anglican and Episcopal Denominational Group helped with the 
planning and hosting of that event. Something along those lines or 
perhaps even greater. I’m thinking of distinctives, for the Anglican 
tradition, Evensong is a beautiful tradition. Evening prayer, Evenson 
perhaps.

SUSANAH HANSON: Compline maybe.

PATRICK MILAS: Compline yeah!

SUSANAH HANSON: It’s at the end of the evening and tends to be 
a very nice service— a short service but a nice wrap-up to the day.

PATRICK MILAS: A great way to end the day, yeah absolutely.

ALLISON POGUE: So a couple of things. I love Pittsburgh, I hate fly-
ing, but I love Pittsburgh, and kind of have some family roots in that 
area. It’s an early time to be thinking about this, but I’m thinking 
about possibly going next year, and I would be happy to help with 
the service. And I love singing, but that’s all I’m going to say. They 
recruited me onto the Seminary Choir, so there’s going to be some 
singing. I’m happy to participate if I’m there in person.

SUSANAH HANSON: We can do a duet, Allison.

ALLISON POGUE: We also have our choir director. I just want to say, 
great musician sitting right here, so see if we can get him to Pittsburgh.



46    ANNUAL Y E ARBOOK

PATRICK MILAS: Yeah, that’s great! This all sounds excellent. Are there 
other thoughts for next year’s conference worship, or otherwise? 
One of the things that came up—thank you, Natalie—that came up 
during the denominationalism session. Stephen Sweeney pointed out 
that he saw that no one from the Roman Catholic Denominational 
Group was presenting, and he said “let’s present”—and so he did, I 
think. At the next conference, he had a couple or maybe three ses-
sions, as did several others. The pandemic was very isolating, and 
the number of sessions, the number of sessions and the participa-
tion level, really waned a bit, but it seems to be a good time to really 
ramp it up, and so allow me to say and encourage you all to pres-
ent, whether it has anything to do with the Anglican and Episcopal 
Denominational Group or not. Consider sharing some of the great 
work that you’re doing through conference presentations or panels 
next year. What you’ve shared during your institutional reports is 
compelling—there’s a lot of great stuff going on at your libraries and 
I’d love to learn more about it in the conference setting. So, there’s my 
pep rally—I’ll be thinking about it, too. Feel free to use our Anglican 
and Episcopal list-serv as a go-to place for communication. If you’re 
not on that list, you can be. Will, are you on that list? I’ll plan to add 
you with your permission.

WILL COBERLY: Yeah, that’d be fine.

PATRICK MILAS: Very good. I would entertain a motion to adjourn. 
So, moved. We are adjourned. 

Special thanks go to Ms. Shraeyah Rajeshwaran, Library Assistant, 
Gardner A. Sage Library, New Brunswick Theological Seminary, for 
transcribing the meeting recording to prepare the report for submis-
sion to the Atla Yearbook 2024. 


